Andrei Tarkovski

Andrey Tarkovsky (b. 1932, Zavrazhye, USSR - 1986, Paris) studied at VGIK. Like a number of his contemporaries he took a keen interest in European art film, particularly works by Bergman, Bresson and Fellini. He debuted with Ivan's Childhood (Ivanovo dyetstvo, 1962), a lyrical take on the war seen through the eyes of a child, which won him the Golden Lion at the Venice IFF. After the heavy historical drama Andrey Rublyov (1966) he filmed an adaptation of the utopian novel by Stanisław Lem Solaris (1972), and used his own script for his strongly autobiographical Mirror (Zerkalo, 1975). This was followed by Stalker (1979), an adaptation of a novella by the Strugatsky brothers set in a post-industrial landscape. Tarkovsky defected from the Soviet Union in 1982; his meditation on a life in exile Nostalgia (1983) was shot in Italy, his last film The Sacrifice (Offret, 1986) in Sweden.

MFF Karlovy Vary